World Topographic Map New Design

In mid-November, the ArcGIS Online team published the first part of the World Topographic Map in the new design. The initial rollout has global coverage from 1:591M down to 1:72k. At scales larger than 1:72k, you’ll see the old design for much of the world.

In the USA, Mexico and Europe, the new design persists down to large scales. Exceptions are where we have community participants; their contributions will show up in the old design. However, eleven participants (Redlands CA, Taney County MO, Sioux Falls SD, Salem OR, Iredell County NC, Dane County WI, DuPage County IL, Campbell County WY, Bucks County PA, Ashland WI and Arvada CO) are cached in the new design.

Please check out these areas and see what the new Topo design looks like at large scales! This is the first installment of a lengthy switchover that will require recaching all contributions. I hope you’re making plans to update your data in the new format; perhaps review the blog post about this. The easiest way to do this is to use the new CM2.0 methodology.

I was an enthusiastic user of the original. However, most of the maps I make are mid- to large-scale maps of high-relief areas and in these, the hillshade seems more dramatic than in the original. It’s almost too distracting to use as a base.